• wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
    467·
    2 days ago

    It’s a bit of an overgeneralization to act like men are sex-obsessed and view relationships as a transaction where they can purchase sex by being nice.

    It’s human to want love and care, but so many people view men as only wanting sex, so if a man complains about being lonely, isolated, or being unloved, it seems like everyone jumps to the conclusion that he’s only talking about sex. Then they scorn him, reinforcing the pattern of loneliness and building the sense of frustration and being a victim of ostracization.

    Likewise, if a man is kind to a woman he’ll generally be regarded with suspicion, like “what are you trying to get out of this?” Some people just value kindness and try to be nice for the sake of being nice; but if it lands them with accusations and scorn then it’ll only go on so long before they stop. And then people will scorn them either for being rude to women or snubbing them. It seems it’s impossible to be a man in the vicinity of women without opening oneself to being labeled as a misogynist, no matter what you do.

    The reality is that men are also conscious and complex human beings, and depicting them as these simple and one-dimensional sex pests isn’t really moving the dialogue forward. All it does is give women a temporary feeling of moral superiority which they then chase like any other addiction.

    • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
      132·
      2 days ago

      so many people view men as only wanting sex, so if a man complains about being lonely, isolated, or being unloved, it seems like everyone jumps to the conclusion that he’s only talking about sex. Then they scorn him, reinforcing the pattern of loneliness and building the sense of frustration and being a victim of ostracization.

      Precisely.

      Some people just value kindness and try to be nice for the sake of being nice; but if it lands them with accusations and scorn then it’ll only go on so long before they stop. And then people will scorn them either for being rude to women or snubbing them.

      Not only that, but that will mean that the only men remaining, who haven’t stopped, are that minority that are being transactional, which further distorts women’s perception of men as a whole.

      The reality is that men are also conscious and complex human beings, and depicting them as these simple and one-dimensional sex pests isn’t really moving the dialogue forward. All it does is give women a temporary feeling of moral superiority which they then chase like any other addiction.

      Couldn’t have said it any better myself.

      • Dicska@lemmy.world
        10·
        2 days ago

        Back around 2010, my girlfriend of the time ended up on someone’s page detailing how to pick up girls, and shortly prompting readers to buy their pheromone based product (obvious scam, but that’s not the point now). She got super upset. Outraged, even. She went on a rant about how she’s not a fucking moth that can just be lured by silly simple stuff like that.

        About a year later we took part in a competition where two attendees (2 girls, maybe a year or two younger) were desperately looking for accommodation. One of our rooms was empty that day, so we offered that to them with another flatmate (my GF wasn’t around that day).

        When she had heard about the whole thing, she got rather jealous. Didn’t matter how much I explained it to her that I am boringly faithful, that I only love her and I didn’t care about the girls romantically, or that I have always been like this: in her mind, if a guy is “alone” with 2 girls for the night (daytime is fine, but mystically, horny zombification happens at full moon), he will be as easy to seduce as it gets, not matter what (like any of those two girls wanted anything, anyway).

        Am I a fucking moth, then? It goes both ways.

        • Jarix@lemmy.world
          1·
          2 days ago

          Try to remember the 80/20 rule (may not be accurate with those exact numbers) 80 % of people on here are invisible and rarely make themselves noticed.

          The vocal minority skews perceptions but are often rather noisy about their opinions…which is just like my opinion, man

          • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
            11·
            2 days ago

            Unfortunately, the vocal 20% on the internet tend to create an echo chamber effect, which then bleeds into real-world social interactions.

            That’s why it’s not unheard of for a man to say hi to a woman at a bar, only for her friends to immediately butt in and go “Stop trying to rape her!” as if simply saying hello is synonymous with attempted rape nowadays…

            And it doesn’t help actual victims of rape either, because it desensitizes people to the word. How is anyone supposed to “believe victims” by default if it’s become normal to cry “rape” at the slightest misstep?

    • tea@lemmy.today
      4·
      2 days ago

      Likewise, if a man is kind to a woman he’ll generally be regarded with suspicion, like “what are you trying to get out of this?”

      Maybe it is just me, but I don’t think I’ve been viewed with suspicion because of simply being nice. If you’re sincere and nice, then this typically doesn’t happen. If you’re known as kind of a dick and you switch to being nice, people will take notice. If you’re being seen as love-bombing, you will be seen as suspect. While I agree men should not be typecast as only sex driven, I’m curious how this part of your argument came into it…

      • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
        1·
        2 days ago

        Ah, then you must also have the privilege of being either conventionally attractive, endowed with good social skills, well-integrated into an accepted social group, or some combination of the above.

        But go ahead and say anyone who has none of the above is probably a dick if he faces ostracization cause he probably deserves it.

    • ppue@lemmy.world
      95·
      2 days ago

      The comic doesn’t talk about ‘all men’ or even ‘men’ at all. There are all sorts of people acting like this and if you don’t, you don’t have to defend yourself or attack your imagined adversary.

      • ClamDrinker@lemmy.world
        7·
        2 days ago

        Not sure why you are getting downvoted. What wonderingwanderer says is true as well, but honestly not relevant to this comic. Comics with this type of messaging often very explicitly call out men (even those that don’t treat women as such), which leads to a hostile counter response. This one just says “you’re a dummy if you treat women like this”, which yeah. You probably are, if not worse. But unlike many other examples it could literally also apply to other women, (eg. lesbians), non-binary, or other folks who objectify women. They are exceedingly rare I would bet, but things like TERFs exist too sadly.

        • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
          11·
          2 days ago

          Within context, it was very clearly directed towards men. If it were implicitly directed at any other demographic, it would be called a dogwhistle. So how is it not a dogwhistle?

          You’re right, men who act like that are pigs. Or perhaps more charitably, sheltered and clueless how social interaction work with anyone, especially social interactions with women.

          But there’s a lot of ground between “male with poor social skills tries to be nice and struggles with constant rejection” and “male demands sex as payment for basic pleasantries,” the former of which seems more like a caricature than anything based in reality, and anyone who actually behaves like that would be shunned into oblivion.

          In any case, the implication that anyone lacking social skills is a chauvinist pig is worn-out and unwelcome.

      • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
        13·
        2 days ago

        So if someone makes a comic titled “Men: a guide for dummies” and the two slides are “Not this way: (picture of a vending machine where “sex” is the input and “money/free dinner/free drinks” is the output)” and “this way: (picture with a man that says “complex, conscious human being that you can’t program to buy you things”),” would that be any different?

        Because in my view, both are exploiting harmful stereotypes by making an overgeneralization about the implied opposite gender. You’re defending OP’s example, but somehow I expect you wouldn’t be too happy about the one described above…

        And by the way, if I had simply replied “not all men” to OP’s comic, then I would have been mocked and ridiculed by people claiming that’s just a manosphere dog whistle. But now it’s okay for you to say it doesn’t apply to all men when you’re backtracking and attempting to diminish the concern that this plays on a harmful stereotype that’s not-so-subtly directed towards men as a general category?

        “Don’t worry, not all women are golddiggers. If you’re not one then you don’t need to defend yourself or attack your imagined adversary when you see a post titled ‘Dilbert Creator’s insta thot wife disappears with prenup pension.’”

        Same shit, different direction.

    • ThirdConsul@lemmy.zip
      2·
      2 days ago

      men […] view relationships as a transaction

      Meanwhile all the studies showing numbers (and reason behind them) of women who view relationship and sex as a transaction and trade sex for something, including a man being nice to them: Am I a joke to you?

      (And more studies on “sugar daddy”, e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33433242/ )

      Tldr: it’s not even overgeneralization, it’s diminishing the female agency in the trade. Which I think is worse.

      • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
        21·
        2 days ago

        But… but… some feminists on reddit told me golddiggers aren’t real and only men are culpable in transactional relationships!!!1!

        You know, any critique of a woman’s behavior is a harmful generalization. But generalizations about men are totally fine and anyone who says “not all men are like that” is a redpilled incel, apparently…

        …at least according to reddit feminists (not real feminists)

    • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
      514·
      2 days ago

      It’s a bit of an overgeneralization to act like men are sex-obsessed and view relationships as a transaction where they can purchase sex by being nice.

      I sincerely hope you are a woman overreacting in defense of the other gender. Because if you’re a man, you need to learn to appreciate some self-depreciating humor without getting butthurt. I could chuckle at the comic, because as usual, there is a (big) grain of truth in it.

      • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
        123·
        2 days ago

        So you’re saying my argument is only valid if I’m a woman? And if I’m a man, I just need to learn to be more self-deprecating? What kind of double-standard is that?

        Good luck trying to tell women to “appreciate some self-deprecating humor without getting butthurt.” I’m sure that will turn out well for you.

        Or is it only men who need to be self-deprecating? Cause again, that would be a double standard.

        And if you find it self-deprecating to laugh at “men think sex is transactional,” then you’re telling on yourself. This comic is about you, so don’t act morally superior to men who don’t identify with it.

  • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.caEnglish
    12·
    2 days ago

    you can program anybody to like you, just because we’re complex beings doesn’t mean we don’t have consistent behavioural traits

    • LwL@lemmy.world
      51·
      2 days ago

      Sadly yup. Not quite everyone the same way, but psychology is still pretty scary. Thankfully the manosphere mostly isn’t anywhere neae what actually works with their bs

  • Ephera@lemmy.mlEnglish
    831·
    3 days ago

    I blame romance movies and novels and such. It’s such utter bullshit, how the stereotypical storyline is that she rejects him at first and then he’s just really desperate persistent and then she eventually softens up and they’re married ever after.

    Some women like that little dance of rejecting and the guy not giving up, but even then only if they think you’re cute beforehand.
    But most women will just find that creepy and off-putting. They want to have a partner they actually find attractive themselves, not just any partner who finds them attractive enough to persist through humiliation.

    • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
      19·
      3 days ago

      The guys in these romance movies also tend to be fairly handsome and charming. The rejections are more often because the woman has had bad experiences with men and is careful. Or something else like that. Or maybe she’s got an abusive boyfriend she hasn’t left yet. Whereas in real life it’s entirely possible to just not be that person’s type.

    • CarrotsHaveEars@lemmy.ml
      271·
      3 days ago

      I blame them too.

      The stereotype need to die.

      Some men take rejections seriously. If you blow them off then they move on. In some cases men find it really hurts because they know they’ll be good together.

      Can we go back to when no Tinder, no social media to carry out these “modern” romance practice please? No more stupid romance movies. And please every country pass a law to put a disclaimer on Jane Austen’s books, saying “This romance story never happened.”

    • Baggie@lemmy.zip
      7·
      3 days ago

      Yeah I literally spent the first few decades of my life thinking this because nobody told me how it actually works, and media was all I had to go on.

    • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
      2·
      2 days ago

      Some women like that little dance of rejecting and the guy not giving up, but even then only if they think you’re cute beforehand. But most women will just find that creepy and off-putting.

      The big frustration comes with the fact that the “most” women above are still happily consuming the romance movies/novels with the toxic paradigm you describe, along with the “some”. And then they’ll turn around and get indignant about it existing in real life, while promoting/encouraging it culturally simultaneously.

      Look at the colossal sales figures for 50 Shades of Grey, what percentage of that do you think came from men?

  • ThePyroPython@lemmy.world
    284·
    3 days ago

    If you’re just after sex and can’t get any via casual hook ups from bars / dating apps / fetish groups then just pay a consenting adult for sex.

    If you’re after genuine human connection and a relationship then you should work on yourself to be someone you’d like to be in a relationship with.

    • Holytimes@sh.itjust.works
      18·
      2 days ago

      Don’t forget about half of the world weirdly has made paying a consenting adult for sex illegal and extremely punishable beyond all fucking reason.

      A quarter has made it quasi illegal or legal in a sense that basically is so limited it might as well be illegal

      And the last quarter it’s legal. Which is basically just South America and the middle part of Western Europe.

    • Fizz@lemmy.nz
      1·
      2 days ago

      The only way to know you can’t get any is to try tho. If you try you end up in this generalisation.

  • Herr Woland@lemmy.world
    7·
    2 days ago

    First I thought it was a manual for how to have sex with vending machines or some new kind of vending machine that sells sexual services or something.

      • Ŝan • 𐑖ƨɤ@piefed.zipEnglish
        23·
        3 days ago

        Þe OP post is not accurate for guys. For most men, you put being nice in here and get sex out there does work.

        • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemmy.zip
          4·
          3 days ago

          Just to be a contrarian and push against this trope, I’m AMAB and have been sexually harassed by several women because I didn’t act like a dick vending machine. Women deal with this far more than men do, and I don’t want to diminish that, but the trope of “men always want to have sex” is also harmful. And the behavioral impositions of being a man/viewed as a man (I’m agender) makes it harder for men to get support or even feel comfortable enough to talk about their victimization to their peers

          • Ŝan • 𐑖ƨɤ@piefed.zipEnglish
            11·
            2 days ago

            I used þe adjective “most” intentionally. According to Pew, around 5% of þe US population is non-binary. For every person like you who gets offended by women propositioning þem, there are two dozen who wish þey had your problem.

            • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemmy.zip
              2·
              2 days ago

              Few things here: this happened when I was still identifying as a man, and was not questioning my gender. I began questioning and came out long after these things happened to me. I was viewed as a man, treated like a man, and harassed as a man.

              I wasn’t “offended”, I was sexually harassed, groped, and made to feel unsafe by multiple women several times. It was t as much of a "proposition"as it is when a woman is violated because they didn’t act like a sex vending machine.

              Thirdly, fantasy =/= reality. I struggle to imagine anyone feeling elated by unwelcome, persistent, and violating “propositions” when they’re actually happening to them.

              The harassment wasn’t a result of my gender identity, wasn’t a result of my “offense”, and I wasn’t being propositioned. I wasn’t receptive to force, and I couldn’t be overpowered so I was made to feel less than. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn’t intend to be callous and victim blame, but that’s what you’re doing. Maybe try to not do that to others in the future

      • baltakatei@sopuli.xyz
        10·
        3 days ago

        Enemy is vulnerable to ice? Bulk ice cube vending machine. Enemy vulnerable to fire? Gasoline pump. Enemy has a blind spot above them? Party balloon vending machine. Enemy vulnerable to being crushed by 20 ton bulk ice cube vending machine that just transformed from floating party balloon bending machine mid-air?